WARNING!

It has been suggested that the scene is one of the most repulsive in twentieth-century cinema. Director Quentin Tarantino has confessed to being nauseated by this scene, but critics with stronger stomachs have praised its dark humour. (Leonard Maltin noted it as “an unforgettable scene, like it or not.”) It was filmed in the Porchester Centre, a public building owned by the City of Westminster on Porchester Road, London.

Stink bomb gas to give stroke victims new hope

Scientists use hydrogen sulphide to put patients into ‘suspended animation’

The Guardian, UK–The gas that provides millions of schoolchildren with hours of fun and gives stink bombs their revolting smell could soon provide doctors with new treatments for conditions ranging from strokes to chronic arthritis.

Some researchers are even trying to use hydrogen sulphide – the source of rotten eggs’ [and, in part, farts’] unpleasant odour – to put patients with strokes or serious injuries into a form of suspended animation to help them survive severe traumas. This research is now being backed by the US military, who believe it could help their surgeons cope with injuries suffered by soldiers in battle.

Note: The Hong Kong Customs & Excise Dept. has deemed the above pictured prank toy, still on sale through various outlets, to be unsafe, giving off a quantity of Hydrogen Sulfide that may pose a health risk to young children. Which brings us back to the old adage that every potential medicine is also a potential poison, when used improperly.

This is third story I’ve run on a home overrun with cats and feces. I’ve decided to establish a separate category for this topic.

This time the house is in Villa Park, Orange County, CA. Kind of a sad story, actually. And the old lady’s son is a sorry-assed excuse for that title. Dude, she changed your shitty drawers and kept you warm and fed when you were young and helpless.

More evidence that this society marginalizes the old. But I’ve got news for you, in that case. Prepare to be marginalized, because you’re going there. All of you.

Elder abuse suspected at putrid Villa Park house

The 53-year-old son of an elderly woman whose filthy Villa Park home was overrun with cats — both living and dead — is under investigation for elder abuse, Orange County sheriff’s officials said Thursday.

Paramedics called to the home this month found Mary Maloney, 76, lying outside on a blanket; she was covered with sores and skin rashes, authorities said. When deputies investigated, they found cat feces 2 feet high in places, urine-soaked walls and carpets, and trash everywhere.

Speaking of putrified skate, I had an opportunity to smell one, many years ago. I was on vacation in Long Beach, Washington, and while beachcombing one day, encountered a dead skate upon the beach. It was the worst goddamned thing I ever smelled. In fact, it became the standard to which I likened the smell of fresh-cooked lutefisk (which I haven’t written about here, yet).

Having had this experience, I shuddered involuntarily when I happened upon an article extolling the gustatory virtues of Skata, a “timeless” Icelandic standard, which falls under the loose and ill-defined category of “fermented animal products.” Quite simply, before cooking and consumption, the skate must be prepared by being “kept for weeks under stones and turf and then being hung out for drying in the cold climate.”

Sounds like rotten fish, to me. However, the author of the article “Strange Smelling Delicacy” at The Iceland Review online insists that “…it is by no means rotten or damaged. It is only fermented like cheese, and is very healthy…”

I would like to take a moment here to correct a misconception that this author is promoting, as countless others have done before him–

There are a number of animal-based foods from different parts of the world that are described as being “fermented.” However, the term is erroneous when applied to such foods because fermentation properly means the decomposition of carbohydrates, and since animal tissues are composed of proteins and lipids, and contain at most only traces of carbohydrates, the operative processes in the transformation undergone by these foods are actually putrefaction and rancidification. (source)

So, Skata, its “health benefits” and “gustatory delights” notwithstanding, is a putrified, rancid skate. Which is exactly what I would expect to result from burying a dead fish, and then hanging it out to dry. That’s why it’s “strong smelling.” Because it’s freakin’ rotten.

Me – I’ll opt for a nice fresh piece of halibut grilled in butter, any day.

Surströmming is an ostensible “delicacy” common to northern Sweden. Referred to as “fermented* or “soured” herring, it is made by putting fresh caught fish in barrels to sit for a couple months, with just enough salt added to suppress the more nasty varieties of bacteria that would propagate in the slurry, otherwise. After two months, the fish is transferred to cans where the “fermentation” process continues, often causing the can to swell (which we in the U.S. would equate with the presence of botulism).

The swelling results from the production of carbon dioxide gas through the action of Haloanaerobium , a species of bacterium which feeds upon the fish.

The fish has such a foul odor that it is often opened and consumed out-of-doors. The smell results from the following compounds, produced during the “fermentation” period, which also add to the “complex” flavor of the product:

propionic acid: pungent/acrid quality

butyric acid: rancid-butter

hydrogen sulfide: rotten-eggs

acetic acid: vinegar-like

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*Not accurate. The process of fermentation refers specifically to the biological action of organisms breaking down carbohydrates (as in grains, fruits, etc.). The processes which occur in animal products (which contain almost no carbohydrate) are properly called “putrefaction” and “rancidification.” It may be that purveyors of putrid, rancid flesh products adopted the term “fermentation” because 1.) The process superficially resembles the process of fermenting carbohydrates 2.) Because “fermented” sounds less noxious than “putrid” and “rancid.”

Smelly Davos unveils new world odor

DAVOS, Switzerland (CNN) — If there’s a sweet smell at this year’s Global Economic Forum, it’s unlikely to be success.

With troubled markets threatening to leave an unpleasant stink over proceedings, this year’s Davos summit has enlisted the help of a perfumer to ensure gathered world leaders and business chiefs don’t turn up their noses.

Christophe Laudamiel, a scientist who stirs up scent cocktails for New York-based International Flavors and Fragrances has spent the past six months developing a range of odors he hopes will help delegates tackle the financial meltdown.

“Even though Davos has a very corporate image, it is looking to the future and the world of olfaction, of smell and perfumery is part of the future,” Laudamiel told CNN in the lightly-scented entrance lobby of the Forum’s main venue.

Laudamiel, and his collaborator, Berlin-based Christophe Hornetz, have installed eight fragrance dispensers throughout the conference center, squirting tiny whiffs of his specially blended aromas into the thin mountain air being inhaled by Microsoft founder Bill Gates, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon and many others.

Site stats indicate an overwhelming interest in my earlier post about the odoriferous oral phenomenon of “tonsilloliths,” more commonly known as “tonsil stones,” so as a public service, I’ll direct you to a site specifically devoted to the subject–